Association between parental age, brain structure, and behavioral and cognitive problems in children

Objective To investigate the relation between parental age, and behavioral, cognitive and brain differences in the children. Method Data with children aged 9–11 of 8709 mothers with parental age 15–45 years were analyzed from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. A general linear model was used to test the associations of the parental age with brain structure, and behavioral and cognitive problems scores. Results Behavioral and cognitive problems were greater in the children of the younger mothers, and were associated with lower volumes of cortical regions in the children. There was a linear correlation between the behavioral and cognitive problems scores, and the lower brain volumes ( r > 0.6), which was evident when parental age was included as a stratification factor. The regions with lower volume included the anterior cingulate cortex, medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampus, and temporal lobe (FDR corrected p